He looked over at her again and saw that the book had sagged down onto her heavy thigh. Her head was tilted over onto her shoulder and she breathed audibly through her open mouth. Each night they stayed home it was the same. She would expect him to awaken her when he was ready to go to bed. Now there was no need to discipline his expression. While she slept he could look at her with all the naked, helpless fury at his command.
In that moment he made up his mind, finally and completely, with no possibility of changing it. Peter Kallon decided to make himself a widower and put into effect the plan he had worked out.
Friday he made her write the note.
He sat at the small desk, scribbling. He made frequent grunts of disgust, crumpling what he had written. She asked him what the trouble was.
“Nothing, nothing,” he said impatiently.
He wrote for a long time, then said irritably, “The hell with it,” crumpling what he had written.
“What is the trouble, darling?” she asked.
“Maybe you could help me. You see, I’ve got one account, a garage, that’s giving me a bad time. The man won’t keep the books the way I tell him to. We’ve quarreled about it. I’m trying to write a letter to him, but I can’t seem to get it right. If I could dictate it to you and you wrote it down... I always think better on my feet somehow.”
“Of course, darling,” she said.
He laid out a fresh sheet of her notepaper and put his fountain pen beside it. She took his place at the small desk.
“What’s his name?”
“Don’t bother with that, Myra. I’ll copy it over. Let me see now. First paragraph. ‘You know how hard I’ve tried to make everything work out. But there is no use trying any more.’ New paragraph. ‘Please don’t condemn me too much for taking this step. I am certain that you will be happier in the future because of it.’ There! That ought to do it.”
He leaned over her shoulder and read the words she had written in her childish scrawl. The words, as usual, slanted uphill to the right edge of the paper.
“Like that pen?” he asked casually. There was the coldness of sweat against his ribs.
“I like a heavier point,” she said. “You know that.”
“Just a habit. A fine point makes better-looking writing. Here, sign your name on that sheet. For my file.”
She obediently wrote “Myra.” He took the pen from her hand before she could write the last name. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me look at this. I think you were bearing down too hard on it.” He examined the point, holding it under the lamplight. “Get up a minute, dear. I want to try it.”
He sat down and wrote on another sheet.
“No, I guess it’s okay. Thanks, dear. I’ll recopy this letter and send it to the man. I think it’ll be all right.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. For a long time he did not risk looking at her. When he did he saw that she was engrossed in the novel again, without suspicion. Just to be certain, he copied the letter, using the actual name of one of his clients, making the contents a bit more businesslike. He showed it to her. She said that she guessed it sounded all right.
After she had fallen asleep he read the note over. Finger-prints on it were quite all right. He would just make certain that he found the note first.
You know how hard I’ve tried to make everything work out. But there is no use trying any more.
Please don’t condemn me too much for taking this step. But I am certain that you will be happier in the future because of it.
A bit stilted, perhaps, but the intent was unmistakable. It was on her gray monogrammed notepaper. He put it with his business papers, knowing that she never looked at them. He wanted to take a long walk to get the tension out of him. But that might look a bit odd, and his plan didn’t call for it.
Instead he took out the manila folder containing the contest puzzles he was currently working on. Within fifteen minutes he was so deeply engrossed in the puzzle that he had actually forgotten his plan. The deadline of this one was near. It was a puzzle that assigned numerical values to letters of the alphabet, and the object was to fill out a grid with words in such a way that the highest possible total was reached.
At midnight he put his solution into the envelope and addressed it. Myra awakened by herself, yawned, and smiled sleepily at him. Trusting Myra! For a moment his resolve was weakened by pity. He thought of the envelope in his hand. The first prize was fifty thousand dollars. With fifty thousand dollars, life could be made bearable, even with Myra. Money would buy a certain amount of liberty from the married state.
But, as a winner of many very small prizes, he knew how remote his chances were.
He smiled back at her and they went to bed.
On Saturday afternoon he had, as he expected, an hour alone in the apartment. It was a ground-floor apartment in the back of the building, the windows half shadowed by cedars. That was a necessary part of the plan. He took the fishline from the closet shelf, cut off a ten-foot length and tied a loop in the end, made a slipknot. The windows were of the sort with a permanent screen, and they could be opened or closed by inside cranks. Each movement had been planned. The handles on the small gas stove pointed straight down. They turned in the right direction for his purposes. He slipped the noose over one handle, pulled it tight, ran the other end of the string to the window, and poked it through one of the meshes of the screen. The window was open a few inches. Then, carrying a screwdriver for the sake of appearances, he went outside and around the building to the window. He found the end of the string, pulled it slowly and firmly. It gave slightly and then came free. He pulled it all the way out through the mesh, forcing the knot through, then pushed firmly against the window. As he had expected, the crank made a half turn and closed.
He hurried back into the apartment and found that the kitchenette was filled with the stink of gas. The burner, unlighted, was on full. He turned it off, opened the window to air the place.
The stove had four burners. He made three more lengths of string with slipknots at the end, knots that would slip off when the handles pointed directly at the window. He put the four lengths of string on the closet shelf.
When Myra returned from the store, he was working on a new puzzle which had just come out.
That was on Saturday. He gave himself Sunday as a breathing space and began the second part of the campaign. Myra was a person who needed a great deal of sleep. Peter decided to see that she would become starved for sleep.
Monday night he talked her into a late movie. After they got back to the apartment he talked long and animatedly about the picture they had seen, ignoring her yawns and sighs. They were in bed by two thirty. He set the alarm for seven and saw that she got up when he did. On Tuesday he phoned four times during the day, knowing from the drugged sound of her voice that he was awakening her each time. Tuesday night he took her out to dinner and then to another movie. He watched her in the movie and awakened her the two times she fell asleep. He insisted on seeing part of the picture over and afterward invented an excuse to call on friends.
They were in bed by midnight, but Peter lay in the darkness for a time and then awakened her to tell her that he was ill. Her concern for him kept her from getting very much sleep that night. And on Wednesday morning Peter phoned the office and said that he was not well. He demanded copious attention all through the day. Myra cared for him and dragged about with the drugged look of a sleepwalker.
It was hard for him to conceal his excitement and anticipation. At five o’clock he got up and dressed, declaring that he felt much better. In fact, he said, he was famished.